Monthly Archives: February 2014

February 24, 2014 · 10:42 pm

Why DO we spend so much on defense? (check the map)

By Christopher B. Daly

According to recent news accounts, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has plans to reduce U.S. defense spending dramatically — even to what used to be considered peacetime levels. There are reasons to wish him success, and there are reasons to doubt he’ll be able to make much change.

One of the drivers of defense spending is the extent of our commitments worldwide. Like many a great power before us. . . Check that: Like every great power before us, we are over-extending our military. Here’s a map that makes that clear. This is an official map from the Pentagon, showing that every inch of the Earth is the “responsibility” of one U.S. military commander or another.

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

u-s-_unified_command_plan_map_2011-04-06

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February 23, 2014 · 1:52 pm

Inside the Meme Factory: Conservatives gin up “studies” to suit needs

By Christopher B. Daly 

Here’s a peek inside what I call “the Meme Factory” — the interlocking set of institutions that conservatives built, mainly since WWII, to manufacture “studies,” slogans, and ideas that could probably not pass muster at most universities or scholarly journals but are very useful to the conservative movement. Briefly, the way it often works is that a conservative funder or activist has a notion. The notion is taken to a conservative “think tank,” where it can be refined, simplified, and outfitted with some academic-sounding “research.” The whole package can be offered to sympathetic conservative “journalists” who work at conservative media outlets like Fox, National Review, Newsmax, Breitbart, etc. Then, when real scholars and responsible journalists ignore it, conservatives can cry foul and denounce everyone else as “biased.”

Today’s case in point: a story in the NYTimes not about this phenomenon but which nevertheless reveals a bit of how this system operates. The story naturally focuses on the latest developments. Igt is essentially a “stage-setter” for a hearing set for Tuesday in a federal court in Detroit over the suitability of same-sex couples as parents. But it’s the backstory that really deserves equal attention:

–To start at the beginning, in August 2010, a federal judge in a different federal court in California writes in a ruling that he found “no reliable evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry will have any negative effects on society.”

–Alarmed, conservatives swing into action.

–In late 2010, they gather at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, one of the central nodes in the Meme Factory. According to the Times, “opponents of same-sex marriage discussed the urgent need to generate new studies on family structures and children.” In other words, they wanted to commission studies whose outcome was pre-determined.

–Result: “the marshaling of $785,000 for a large-scale study by Mark Regnerus, a meeting participant and a sociologist at the University of Texas who will testify in Michigan.” The money comes from two conservative foundations: Witherspoon and Bradley.

–His study comes out in 2012 in the journal Social Science Research, and conservatives immediately start citing it. No surprise: the study “finds” that children do best when raised by their own straight, married, monogamous parents.

–Scholars criticize his methods and motives, prompting the journal to launch an internal audit of its own procedures. Basically, the folks at Social Science Research need to determine how they got so badly used in this case.

–No matter. The Meme Factory has delivered: a study, a controversy, victim status, and news coverage.

Who says American manufacturing is dying?

Below, as a public service, I offer a version of a work in progress. It’s a timeline of the interlocking institutions that make up the Meme Factory — think tanks and media outlets. You’ll notice that some names crop up again and again: Scaife, Mellon, Murdoch, Kristol.

(Please help me fill in any blanks.)

CONSERVATIVE MEDIA AND INSTITUTIONS

 

A TIMELINE

 

Compiled by Christopher B. Daly

MEDIA OUTLETS

 

Debut              Name                                                   Owner/Founder

(not to mention: WSJ, Chi Tribune, LA Times, US News, Reader’s Digest, Forbes, etc)

1944                Human Events                                        Henry Regnery et al.

1955                National Review                                 William F. Buckley Jr.

 1965                Public Interest                                        Irving Kristol  (folded, 2005)

1967                American Spectator                             R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr./Regnery

196?                Commentary (turns right)                 Norman Podhoretz/

1968                Reason  (libertarian)                            Robert W. Poole Jr.   

1975                Conservative Digest                           Richard Viguerie

1982                Washington Times                              Rev. Moon/Unification Church

1985                The National Interest                         Irving Kristol

1988                Rush Limbaugh                                     Limbaugh/Clear Channel

1995                Weekly Standard                                 Murdoch/News Corp/ Wm Kristol

1995                Townhall.com                                      offshoot of Heritage

1996                Fox News                                                Ailes/ News Corp. (Murdoch)

1996                The Drudge Report                             Matt Drudge

 1996                Free Republic (website)                   James C. “Jim” Robinson

1997                World Net Daily                                 Jos.&Eliz. Farah

1998                Newsmax Media                                 Christopher W. Ruddy  (Scaife)

2001                InstaPundit                                         Glenn Reynolds

2002                The American Conservative (mag)     Pat Buchanan, Taki, et al.

2002                Glenn Beck Radio Program                 Glenn Beck

 2007                Breitbart.com                                      Andrew Breitbart

INSTITUTIONS                 [major donors: Olin, Coors, Scaife, Richardson, Bradley]

1943                American Enterprise Institute                        big business

1947                Regnery Publishing                             Eagle Publishing

1957                Hoover Institution                              ?????/ Stanford

1960                Young Americans for Freedom           William F. Buckley

1961                Christian Broadcasting Network        Pat Robertson

1963                Oral Roberts University                     Oral Roberts

1969                AIM                                                    Reed Irvine

1973                Heritage Foundation                           Paul Weyrich             (Coors)

1975                Eagle Forum                                        Phyllis Schlafly  (radio, Web)

1977                Cato Institute                                      Edward H. Crane                                                                                       (Koch, Olin, Scaife, Bradley)

1977                Focus on the Family                           Dr. James Dobson

1977                National Journalism Center                M. Stanton Evans (Buckley; YAF))

1978                Inst. for Educational Affairs               Irving Kristol/William E. Simon                                                (Olin, Scaife, Richardson)

1979                Moral Majority (thru 1989)               Weyrich, Viguerie, Falwell.

1982                Federalist Society                               Edwin Meese, Robert Bork, Olson

1987                Media Research Center                       L. Brent Bozell III

1997                Project for  New American Century         Wm. Kristol / Robert Kagan 

 

 

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February 22, 2014 · 2:17 pm

Murdoch solves his housing crisis

So nice to see that Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch has found a place to rest his head.

Since Wendi got the triplex on Fifth Avenue as part of the divorce, Rupert has not exactly been facing homelessness, but still. . . He has landed a rather special spot: the top four floors (take that, Wendi!) at One Madison. (For those planning to drop by, the entrance will be on E 22nd, between Bway and Park.) That’s a lot of stairs for a guy his age, but apparently it’s worth it to be able to say you’ve got a quadriplex.

According to the Times, he paid more than $57 million for the new condo. Ah, to think of the money to be made in mass media!

The building under construction in September 2008; the Met Life Tower is in on the left

Wikipedia: The building under construction in September 2008; the Met Life Tower is in on the left

 

 

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February 20, 2014 · 10:08 am

The hazards of granting anonymity, Part Infinity

Thanks, Dan, for identifying the journalistic issue behind this “story.”

Media Nation

fnc-20130311-scottbrown I’ll leave it to my friend John Carroll to analyze the dust-up between the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald over whether former senator Scott Brown is or isn’t still working for Fox News. (Short answer: he is.) No doubt that’s coming later today.

So just a quick observation. On Wednesday the Globe’s Joshua Miller quoted an unnamed source at Fox who told him that Brown was “out of contract,” thus fueling speculation that Brown was about to jump into New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate race. It turns out, according to the Herald’s Hillary Chabot and Miller’s follow-up report, that Brown was merely between contracts, and that he’s now re-upped.

If I were Miller or an editor at the Globe, I would love to be able to point to a named source at Fox for passing along information that may have been technically accurate but was not actually true. But…

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February 19, 2014 · 3:53 pm

O’Reilly on O’Reilly

By Christopher B. Daly

Not to be missed: this recent commentary by Tim Egan in the NYTimes about Fox News figure Bill O’Reilly and O’Reilly’s recent interview with President Obama. As usual, O’Reilly believes that the key figure in the interview was . . . himself. For days afterward, O’Reilly and his colleagues at Fox milked the interview and scored it a solid win for O’Reilly over the president (as if it were a debate).

Egan makes a good point here:

So, the first point for historians sniffing the odor of O’Reilly’s time capsule in 2114 is that the interview made no news. No ground was broken. It was a journalistic dud. O’Reilly himself spoke for about 40 percent of the time, and devoted 90 percent of the interview to “the full Fox scandal grab bag,” as Jon Stewart called it.

As it happens, I am teaching my students this week about how to conduct interviews in my journalism classes at Boston University (where, yes, I know: Bill O’Reilly attended college). The point I always try to drum into my students about interviewing is simple: It’s not about you. 

Of course, I understand that Bill O’Reilly is not trying to conduct a productive, journalistic interview. He is trying to stage a clash of personalities for television. Like his boss Roger Ailes, O’Reilly is very good at understanding television, even if he seems to have missed class on the day of the lesson about humility.

 

 

 

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February 19, 2014 · 3:10 pm

Globe owner John Henry: A man of few words?

By Christopher B. Daly

Former commodities trader and current pro-sports franchise owner John Henry has also owned the Boston Globe newspaper since last summer, when he bought it for a mere $70 million. Since then, he has said little about his plans, his political views, or his philosophy of journalism. That’s his prerogative, of course, but all the readers of the Globe around New England and beyond, may start to tire of his taciturn approach.

Boston-Globe-and-Henry

 

Last October, Henry published a 3,000-word op ed in his own newspaper under the headline “Why I Bought the Globe.” Among other high-minded points he made was this passage:

 

This much is clear: The overriding mission of The Boston Globe will be to ensure that its readers are getting news they can trust. The Globe will place its emphasis on hard-hitting, investigative accountability that readers can rely on. Not only will the Globe seek to hold people and institutions accountable for their actions, we will hold ourselves accountable for fairness, balance, and fact-checking.

Today, reliable information has never been more valuable. A newspaper needs to provide the breadth of perspective and diligent analysis that gets to the heart of what is going on in our world. The Globe will never be the prisoner of any ideology or political agenda.

Our enterprise reporting will shed new light on important issues of the day, with intellectual honesty and discipline. We will provide our readers with the assurance that if they read the Globe, they will know that time, effort, and thought were put into each and every report.

In this way, Henry sounds like many other American publishers who have issued similar declarations upon taking over newspapers: political independence, a commitment to service, a sense of public trust, etc. His statement was similar in spirit and tone to that of Adolph Ochs when he took over the New York Times in 1896. Here’s the heart of Ochs’ declaration:

It will be my earnest aim that The New-York Times give the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is parliamentary in good society, and give it as early, if not earlier, than it can be learned through any other reliable medium; to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved; to make of the columns of The New-York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.

Since his op-ed last fall, Henry has said little, other than a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce last month. He has removed the Globe’s publisher, Chris Mayer, and given himself that job. Now comes a bit more insight, in an article from Boston magazine, written by senior editor Jason Schwartz. In the piece, Schwartz reveals that Henry would not grant him an interview, but “instead agreed to exchange emails” — without saying how many. The piece includes interviews from other key players (including Globe editor Brian McGrory) but adds little to our understanding of Henry and his intentions.

One reveal: Henry confirmed that he plans to sell most of the Globe’s property in Dorchester and move the newsroom into a prominent place closer to downtown — a good idea that I have thought the Globe should have done years ago. The sale of all that land should reap at least $70 million, which would mean that Henry got the newspaper as such for free.

Still, questions persist. Here are some I have:

–How can the Globe return to profitability?

–How long will the Globe continue in print?

–When you start to make money from the Globe, what will you do with it?

–Is it important to even try maintaining a separation between the paper’s editorial page and its news pages?

–If you have money to invest in the Globe, what are your top priorities for expanded coverage?

–Is there a comparable news operation anywhere in the world that you admire?

–If you had to choose between watching the Red Sox in the World Series or the Liverpool Football Club in a championship game, which would it be?

BONUS: My estimable colleague Dan Kennedy has written about this same topic today, including a warning about the possible return of Mike Barnicle. Well worth a read.

 

 

 

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February 19, 2014 · 9:52 am

Civil Rights journalism

By Christopher B. Daly 

A hat-tip to the now-estimable Southern Oral History Program, which once operated out of the smallest room on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, back in the early 1980s, when I worked there briefly as a researcher/cataloguer.

The program, founded 40 years ago and directed for decades by Prof. Jackie Hall, has grown into a powerhouse of teaching and conducting oral history. Among many projects is one involving journalism history. The SOHP’s “Media and the Movement” blog contains links to audio clips, photos, video, and more. It’s a great resource for anyone interested in the journalism of the “long civil rights movement” in the United States.

[p.s. So pleased to see that the motto of the SOHP is this quote from textile millworker Nell Sigmon: You don’t have to be famous for your life to be history. My co-authors and I used that very quote as an epigram in the Preface to our book Like A Family, a history of the industrialization of the South, which grew out of the SOHP in the 1980s.]

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February 12, 2014 · 11:52 am

Art notes: Hanging with Obama in the Oval

By Christopher B. Daly 

Without waiting for congressional approval, President Obama recently took an executive action to change up the art work that he looks at during his long work days in the Oval Office. Since last week, there have been two landscapes by Edward Hopper in the room — on loan from the Whitney Museum in NYC. The paintings, classic Hoppers from the 1930s, show the rural landscape on outer Cape Cod.Wishing he could get away?

Wishing he could get away?

 

 

As it happens, I visited the Whitney myself a couple of weeks ago and roamed around in the permanent collection, which does indeed contain some terrific Hoppers. One of my favorites is this self-portrait, which I took a picture of. Here’s a detail:

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I’m not sure it should hang in the Oval Office, though. I think I would find those eyes impossible to ignore, and I’d get nothing done. 

Here’s the scoop on the Oval Office artwork, from William G. Allman, the White House curator, writing on the White House blog:

New Additions to the Oval Office

Two paintings by Edward Hopper (1882–1967), widely recognized as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century, were hung in the Oval Office on Friday, February 7, 2014. Cobb’s Barns, South Truro, and Burly Cobb’s House, South Truro — oil on canvas works painted in 1930-33 on Cape Cod — have been lent by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the world’s largest repository of Hopper’s works.

Before building a house on Cape Cod in 1934, Hopper and his wife rented a hillside cottage for four summers. From that house, Hopper executed a series of paintings and drawings of the buildings on their landlord’s farm below, exploring the structures from several angles and at different times of the day.

Emblematic examples of his work, the two paintings lent by the Whitney Museum capture the strong sense of atmosphere and light as well as the empty stillness that characterize much of Hopper’s imagery. They also demonstrate Hopper’s fascination with the various forms of this country’s vernacular architecture — a subject he would return to again and again, resulting in some of the most enduring images of American art.

The Hopper paintings, hung one over the other at the southeast side of the room, add to the breadth of American paintings represented in the Oval Office today:

George Washington by Rembrandt Peale, c.1823
Abraham Lincoln by George Henry Story, c.1915 (from life studies painted in 1861)
The Three Tetons by Thomas Moran, 1895
The Avenue in the Rain by Childe Hassam, 1917
Statue of Liberty by Norman Rockwell, 1946

All five of these works belong to the permanent White House collection, which does not include any works by Edward Hopper. Another notable change to the items hanging in the Oval Office is the removal of a rare printed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln. As a document on paper, it needed prolonged rest from further exposure to light. As a loan to the White House, its preservation required its removal.

 

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February 12, 2014 · 10:45 am

Memo to WashPost: No royalty here!

By Christopher B. Daly

How do these things happen?

Here’s the most prominent part of the homepage  for today’s Washington Post, the morning after a state dinner held at the White House for prominent French bachelor Francois Hollande.

Screen Shot 2014-02-12 at 10.26.10 AM

That headline: “D.C. royalty turns out for state dinner” is a stunner.

Royalty? Really? The word is not even placed inside quote marks. Just presented as a matter of fact? Aw, c’mon.

We all know that Post editors intend it as a kind of shorthand for the American establishment (which, btw, includes a lot of people who live far from the District in such remote outposts as New York, Hollywood, and Kentucky).

It would be tiresome and pedantic to point to the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Sec. 9:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

That about covers it. How could anyone at the Post seriously entertain the notion that the guests at the White House constitute “royalty”? Have they been watching too much “Downton Abbey”? Or, do they really think they are that special? The Post certainly didn’t help itself today, especially among us citizens peasants out in the provinces.

Vive la Republique!

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In other social notes: I see that among the guests was Jill Abramson, the NYTimes executive editor. According to the official guest list from the White House, her escort was not her husband (Henry Griggs) because most guests are invited alone and paired with another guest. Jill was paired with a man named William Woodson, who was not further identified. Was it the author or the actor?

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February 3, 2014 · 2:04 pm

The history of journalism lives on in Worcester, Mass.

By Christopher B. Daly

Here’s a recent article in Worcester magazine introducing readers to the incomparable American Antiquarian Society. It sounds like a museum of antiques, but it is actually the most extensive collection of American newspapers, pamphlets, lithographs, sheet music, and ephemera from the 17th century through the late 19th century.

From the article:

A few of the Society’s most valued materials include a first-edition copy of Lewis and Clark’s journals, printed in the early 1800s; the first printed Bible in British North America, released in 1663; the only known copy of the famous English book “Pamela,” which was the first book printed

COVER_philosophic-cockin the United States, published and sold by Benjamin Franklin; and the only known original copy of the political cartoon “The Philosophic Cock,” which was an early slam of Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings, depicting Jefferson as a rooster and Hemings as one of his hens. At the end of last year, one of the few remaining copies of the first book ever written and printed in British North America, in 1640, the Bay Psalm Book, sold at auction for $14.2 million – the American Antiquarian Society just so happens to also have an original copy of the book.

 

 

The AAS attracts scholars from around the world, including Ken Burns and Jill Lepore, and it is  open to the public.

Here’s a note on the AAS’s history from Wikipedia.

AAS was founded by Isaiah Thomas on October 24, 1812 by an act of the Massachusetts General Court. It is the third oldest historical society and the first to be national in scope.[4]Isaiah Thomas started the collection with approximately 8,000 books from his personal library. The first library building was erected in 1820 in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts. This building was later abandoned and a new building was constructed. It was completed in 1910 and stands on the corner of Park Avenue and Salisbury Street. There have been several additions to this building to accommodate the growing collection, the most recent of which was completed in 2003.

There’s also a story as to why Isaiah Thomas was in Worcester. He was the editor of a Boston newspaper on the patriot side in the American Revolution called The Massachusetts Spy. On April 16, 1775, when the rebels were coming under increasing scrutiny by the British forces occupying Massachusetts, Thomas began to fear that

Isaiah Thomas, rebel printer, by Ethan Alan Greenwood. Courtesy, AAS

Isaiah Thomas, rebel printer, by Ethan Alan Greenwood.
Courtesy, AAS

the redcoats would soon descend on his Boston print shop and put him out of business. So, under cover of darkness, he loaded his presses onto wagons and piled on as many back copies of his own paper as possible, along with any other newspapers or other printed material that would fit. He moved the whole operation to Worcester, safely remote from the coastal bases of the British forces, and prospered there. He later wrote the landmark book, History of Printing in America.

 

So, a hat-tip to Isaiah Thomas.

 

 

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